Becky Ward A2 Media Studies Coursework

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We asked people to view our trailer and then took them outside individually to ask them what they honestly thought of the trailer. They each talked for about 30 seconds and gave their feedback, some positive and some constructive. I have inserted each of the clips below with the name, age, gender and ethnicity of each of the people we interviewed. We chose to do our interview in the form of a video as this allowed them to express what they personally thought of the trailer instead of purely ticking boxes of generalised answers. I did this to see if my understanding of audience’s had been effective wen creating the video; especially in targeting the right demographic. The audience we have aimed our project at are females aged 16-21. We did our interview of 4 females and then 2 males of the same age so we could compare the results between male and female, and hopefully have an outcome where the females have a more positive reception to the trailer. But also that males would also enjoy the film.

PERSON ONE
NAME: Fariha
AGE: 18
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: Asian

This participant of the interview said that they really liked the soundtrack we had chosen for our movie trailer. She also linked this to the idea that it helped make it clear what genre the film was that we were promoting in our trailer. The conventions of the a fantasy soundtrack include that it is fast paced which matches the face paced edits. This is something this audience member also picked up on, she said she really liked the quick jump cuts between lots of different points of the film. She said that she understood the underlining storyline, however, the trailer still contained an enigma which would make her want to watch the rest of the film. She also said to us later on that she really liked that we had used lots of different shot and angle types which kept the trailer interesting. The final thing she notes on in this clip is that she really liked the use of the horse. We asked her after the camera was off why this was and she said she first liked it as it was in the conventions of the genre and therefore made it more apparent that it was a fantasy film, she also said that it isn't something which you would expect in a A2 piece of work and therefore made it interesting aside from other trailers she had seen from our A2 class.

PERSON TWO
NAME: Sarah

AGE: 18

GENDER: Female

ETHNICITY: White

The next person we interviewed said that the genre of the film shown in our trailer was very clear which would enable the audience to understand what to expect in the film due to the generic conventions. She said that we stuck very closely to the conventions and codes of the genre which is something which helped to make the genre very clear. This has showed me the sheer importance of using codes and conventions within our work in order to create a strong sense of genre which will therefore determine if an audience wishes to see the film or not depending on wether they like this specific genre. She commented on that the editing ran smoothly and that other parts of our editing such as adding in colour filters and playing around with the lighting made the genre very clear and were clear in the respect of trying to create a sense of mood within the trailer. She said that she felt like she understood that the trailer was supposed to show a good and also darker side to the character at different parts depending on the lighting. She said that our actors are believable, as only one of our actors had done any previous drama work, it took a lot of takes to get content we were satisfied with and therefore this is something we would look into if we were to redo our project to create a level of professionalism. This audience member, said that she would have liked to see us work on the production company logo's more. This could possibly be done through the use of creating slightly more original ideas and therefore more time spent brainstorming ideas. The final thing she commented on was our soundtrack. She said we could have spent more time on it, and initially we were planning on creating our own instead of getting one off the internet. This is something we would consider if we were to redo our trailer.

PERSON THREE
NAME: Amy
AGE: 17
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: White

This audience member started off by also saying that they really liked how the colour scheme of our video worked and that it therefore gave her a sense of what mood she was supposed to be feeling throughout the video. She commented on how they gave it a mystical effect, which was something we were aiming to create through our trailer. She also commented on the fact that she liked the fast paced editing, aside from it being a convention of trailers, fast paced editing is supposed to inform the audience that there is a lot of action going on as the fast paced editing. It also keeps the audience interested as it builds tension. This person also said that she really liked the end title and the title which appeared after that with the release information. She said it looked really professional. It was something I had spent a lot of time on creating and therefore this element of professionalism was something which I had discovered through a lot of research of other titles. She also said it matches the genre and therefore made sense within the trailer. The only thing she gave constructive criticism on was that a few of the scenes were slightly too dark. This is something we would have wanted to go back and re film is given the time to. We did try doing this on the editing software and succeeded for the most part but I believe we should have maybe spent a little more time on this.

PERSON FOUR
NAME: Laura
AGE: 17
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: White

The next person we interviewed said that she managed to figure out the genre of the film straight away, just from the beginning of the trailer. This is really good as it proves to us that we have used the correct conventions to create the genre we aspired for. Furthermore she liked the way that we used the fade to blacks to split up the different scenes and that it made the trailer a lot clearer. Again this is a very strong generic convention of a trailer, so we are glad that she picked up on this. Furthermore Laura said that the fade to black built up tension throughout which again is positive as we aimed for our audience to feel tension. Lastly the sound effects that were used in our trailer didn't seem out of time and place. We have grown a lot stronger with being able to add our own sound in over the top which has paid off.

PERSON FIVE
NAME: Arif
AGE: 19
GENDER: Male
ETHNICITY: Asian

The next audience memeber believed that the colours on our trailer could have been slightly brighter, we’re not sure whether he meant we should have used a larger range of colours or that the contrast in the colour we had already used should have been brighter. However we couldn't have added in too many bright colours otherwise we would have challenged the conventions of our genre. Arif enjoyed the pace of our trailer, which was great as this tells us that our trailer keeps people occupied, therefore they won’t be getting bored easily. Furthermore shows our trailer contains good enigma. Additionally, Arif believed that there was good continuity flowing all the way through the trailer, again this backs up our last point of the trailer not boring any audience members. This is what we want from our trailer. Lastly He mentioned that our production logos appeared really realistically on the screen, proving that we have managed to present our trailer in a professional way and the logos have professionalism to them.

PERSON SIX
NAME: Matthew
AGE: 17
GENDER: Male
ETHNICITY: White

The final person we interviewed really enjoyed the soundtrack to the whole of our trailer; the whole way through the soundtrack built up with tension and got faster. The sound bridges that were used with the voice over again worked really well and were a great element to our trailer. There are lots of different scenes within our trailer but we still haven’t managed to give anything majorly to do with the story-line away which Matthew picked up on. He specifically mentioned that he didn't get bored which shows that our trailer was a very good duration length as well as containing capturing clips. Additionally Matthew spoke about the horse featured and how it was unique to any other A2 media studies coursework as it would be pretty difficult to film someone who knows someone who owns one. This captured his attention massively and enticed his emotions towards the trailer even more and builds up the fantasy genre as it could turn into a mystical creature.